


hands

by archetypically



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 23:58:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15497739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archetypically/pseuds/archetypically
Summary: Her hands, one mechanical and one not, are instruments of death.And she will use them to kill everyone who ever laid one on her.





	hands

From early on, she learns that her hands are instruments of death.

That knowledge is the key to her survival, because she learns, just as early on, that mercy isn’t. She learns, with stone cutting into her back and drawing blood, her sister’s blade pointed at her throat, that _mercy_ is nothing but a child’s dream. A weakness – and there are no allowances for those.

She fights until she collapses, she kills until the faces blur together and then kills some more, buys herself another day that way even as she continues to lose, even as more and more of her becomes something she doesn’t recognize.

Her hands, one mechanical and one not, are instruments of death.

And she will use them to kill everyone who ever laid one on her.

 

Gamora’s embrace is softer than she’d thought it would be, but her hands are still too rough. Her touch is still too jerky, too sudden, and it’ll be a long time before the ghost of what Thanos wedged between them fades.

 

Mantis’s hands are soft.

Her touch, grazing over the flesh that’s still left on her arm, is impossibly light, and it’s nothing that the stretches of her memory can provide any kind of precedent for. Automatically, she inhales a sharp breath, tenses every muscle in her body. Her mechanical hand forms a fist.

“I am sorry. I can –” Mantis begins, eyes wide, then falls silent.

Nebula clenches her jaw, and for a time, says nothing in response. Says nothing, and continues to feel the soft hand on her arm. _Welcomes_ it there, comes a thought, an _allowance_ that she hasn’t made in a long time. And –

“No.” She swallows, looks Mantis straight in the eye. When she speaks again, her voice loses the slightest point of an edge. “Don’t.”


End file.
